News & Events in the World of Photography, Printing and Design
New Sony Cyber-shot DSC-H9 Digital Camera Reviwed
18th March 2008
The Super-zoom camera are well established and are a very popular type of digital cameras. They used to to be called "bridge cameras" as they bridge the gap between the pocket compact snapshot camera and entry level digital SLRs, offering a compromise between the convenience of the former and the photographic capabilities of the latter.
Most of the major manufacturers today have products in this category, including of course Sony, which has a range of five super-zoom cameras in its H-series models. This review looks at the Cyber-shot DSC-H9, an 8.1-megapixel camera with a 15x zoom lens (equivalent to 31-465mm) in detail.
In such well established niches, products tend to conform to known and liked patterns and to evolve to follow function. Hence it is not a surprise to see that the cameras in this sector tend to look very similar and have similar specifications. The Sony DSC-H9 follows this pattern and looks like many other super-zoom camera models. It could be said that the overall design has been infuenced by Konica-Minolta's Z series, and could represent what the Z series might have developed into had Konica-Minolta not abandoned the digital camera market.
As for other manufacturer's models, the H9 competitors are the Fuji S8000fd (£172), the Olympus SP560UZ (£208), the Panasonic FZ18 (£229), and of course the Canon S5 IS (£233). With the DSC-H9 costing around £220, it is obviously aiming for the looking at the top end of the market.
The H9 has had a mixed reception by the testers, on the one hand it is a fairly large and imposing camera, and the big Carl Zeiss lens certainly looks the part. The camera too has a fairly large handgrip, and the body itself is quite thick, and does look quite solid and businesslike. However the lightness of the camera makes it feel lighter than perhaps it should and makes one feel that it is less solid than it looks, despite weighing in at a substantial 546g (including battery). This gives the impression that it is not as well made as some of its rival models, the plastic body feeling a bit thin in places, with a few worrying creaks when squeezed.
Sony's DSC-H9 indeed has some interesting features, including an impressive zoom range, manual exposure options, night shooting and a big tilting monitor, and it is competitively priced, but it does lack the versatility of some rival cameras. The final image quality, also looks a bit suspect, but please do check out the full review of the DSC-HP.
Back to Photographic News Listings
